Trump effect on Latinos started early

It was bound to happen once Republican presidential candidates like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz began building their campaigns on a foundation of anti-illegal immigrant rhetoric and policy proposals:

Many thousands of legal Latino residents all around the nation began seeking U.S. citizenship so they could become registered voters and cast ballots against either Cruz or Trump, should either become the GOP’s nominee.

So far, the numbers are not staggering, the way they were in California after the easy passage of the 1994 Proposition 187, which sought to deprive the undocumented and their U.S. citizen children of taxpayer-funded services from public schooling to emergency room care and vaccinations.

Even as federal courts were throwing out virtually all of that ballot initiative, which passed with a 2-1 margin, 2.5 million new citizens were minted by the end of 1997 — just three years after passage of 187...